SoulCycle: Fashionista Fitness Craze
SoulCycle instructor Stacey Griffith
You can see them congregating over coconut water at Juice Generation on Manhattan’s West 72nd street or waiting on line at Whole Foods in Tribeca, drenched in equal parts sweat and neon-colored wicking fabrics. They’re the SoulCycle groupies who spin on average four times a week and travel across the city just to make Laurie Cole’s 9:30 a.m. class or Janet Fitzgerald’s grueling one-hour Sunday morning class. SoulCycle, like its competitor FlyWheel, has become a fitness phenomenon. A single class costs $32 to $36—steep, even by New York standards. But both men and women swear by the payoff of 45 minutes spent sweating and pedaling by candlelight in SoulCycle’s high-tech studios: endorphin highs and svelte silhouettes. And they’ve inspired new activewear trends: neon-colored, camouflage-patterned Nike biking shorts topped by burn-out T-shirts with empowering slogans splashed across the chest, skull-patterned scarves worn as headbands, and Mylar tote bags.
SoulCycle is the brainchild of Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler, who met over lunch at Soho House one afternoon in 2005 and bonded over their mutual disappointment in local fitness offerings. Rice, a former talent manager who had just moved back to the city from Los Angeles, had tried everything—yoga, core training, slow burn—but couldn’t replicate an L.A. cycling class where the teacher had “made the mind-body connection.” Cutler, a former real estate broker from Telluride, Colorado, was trying to lose the weight from her second baby, and was similarly frustrated by the lack of cardio options in the city that could replicate the endorphin high that came from hiking.
Julie Rice & Elizabeth Cutler
“The difference between the East Coast and the West Coast is that exercise is much more joyful out west,” says Rice, “it’s a part of your day that you look forward to.”
Over lunch, Rice and Cutler talked about how to get that joy into exercise. They discussed Johnny G who had invented Spinning in the early 1990s for cyclists who wanted to train indoors. But traditional Spinning was limited in terms of the workout it gave the upper body (virtually none), not to mention the big quad muscles it develops and that not everyone desires. Both Cutler and Rice thought they could improve upon the existing techniques by incorporating the whole body into the workout and adding arm exercises. They also knew the workout had to be under 45 minutes; New Yorkers do not bide their time.
Neither woman had ever been an entrepreneur, nor were Cutler and Rice fitness experts, but they continued the conversation in the cab ride after lunch. A day later, Cutler was looking for space to rent and Rice was interviewing “towel guys.” Their idea, called SoulCycle, was to offer 45-minute indoor cycling classes that would be accompanied by uplifting music and a kind of Zen-motivational philosophy spelled out by handpicked teachers. They rented a ground-floor dance studio in the lobby of an Upper West Side building, and SoulCycle was born.
“We didn’t even realize that it didn’t come with a sign outside on the sidewalk,” Rice recalls. So they bought a rickshaw on EBay, painted it yellow, put a SoulCycle sign on it and parked it outside.
The business took off, a fact Rice attributes to the sense of community SoulCycle instills in riders. “People feel so good from it, the energy of the pack takes exercise to a whole other level.” Today SoulCycle has eight studios, including locations in Scarsdale, NY, Miami and East Hampton. “The dynamics have changed so much,” Rice notes. “New York has really trended in terms of group cardio fitness while Los Angeles now has trended toward gyms [and solo workouts].”
Each week, the studios see several thousand riders, according to SoulCycle’s PR director.
Rice and Cutler recently announced a strategic partnership with Equinox to continue their expansion to Los Angeles, Greenwich, CT and Washington, DC, in addition to two more New York City studios. On any given day, Manhattan riders include devoted fans like Kelly Ripa, Chelsea Clinton, Jane Krakowski, Karolina Kurkova, Edie Falco and Brooke Shields. Even Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have made appearances.
The cult of SoulCycle revolves around individual teachers, some of who have broken out and opened their own studios. Ruth Zukerman, one of the original cycling instructors on the founding team at SoulCycle, opened FlyWheel Sports with Tiki Barber in 2010. The point of differentiation between the two is FlyWheel’s TorqBoard, a performance-tracking screen that allows riders to see how hard and fast they’re peddling while watching other riders’ numbers simultaneously. FlyWheel now has three studios in New York City as well as Sag Harbor, NY, East Hampton, NY, and Boca Raton, FL. Studios in Chicago, and Atlanta will open later in the fall. This past spring, FlyWheel spun out their offering when they introduced FlyBarre, a popular routine based on core-strengthening barre exercises. SoulCycle has SoulBands, which uses rubber bands suspended from the ceiling to strengthen arms while pedaling.
At SoulCycle, Rice designs the active wear offering that’s sold through the studios. The look, what Rice describes as “urban warrior,” has become influential even in other fitness classes, where bandanas and t-shirts printed with skulls, lightening bolts turn up regularly in SoulCycle’s neon palette. “We want to prepare riders mentally to get their tough on,” says Rice. “We want them to be empowered by their gear.”
